


to you alone

by ohmygodwhy



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Asexual Jughead Jones, Gen, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Series, alternate title: y is every adult in riverdale so gotdamn useless, hearing impaired Jughead, post episode 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-18 23:24:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11885049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmygodwhy/pseuds/ohmygodwhy
Summary: he’d been saving up for weeks, since they were planning to stop at roadside attractions and eat at whatever small town diners they could find on the way, probably joke about how it was nothing compared to pop’s. he doesn’t know what to do with the money, now. doesn’t know what to do with all the words he was gonna say—my sister is gone, my father is a wreck. he’s been promising to get his shit together for the past four months but he hasn’t. i’m living in a fifty-year-old projection room and i don’t know how much longer i can do it.or: jughead's adventures in homelessness





	to you alone

**Author's Note:**

> me, watching jughead walk away w no idea where he's gonna live even tho his dad is right there, a single tear running down my cheek:,,,,,,,,,,,,,wow
> 
> anyways, i have a lot of feelings abt jug living on his own for who knows how long and no one knowing like how,, did no one know,,how did he survive that long,,

 

i.

the first night he stays at the drive in, he locks the door tight behind him, drops his backpack in the corner, spreads his sleeping bag out on the cot he dragged in, and tries to fall asleep. 

it doesn’t work.

it’s not really _hot_ in the projection room, and it’s definitely not cold, but his body switches from being too warm and then too cold and then too warm—he hopes he’s not getting sick, but he’s probably just getting stressed. 

he shifts to get more comfortable, turns on his side and reaches under his pillow to checks his phone. 9:37 pm. god, he’d usually be doing homework right now, or watching late night television with archie on the weekends, spread out on his couch, stealing all his food—and stop right there, he thinks, catching himself. archie hasn’t invited him over in weeks, and thinking about that couch just makes his hips hurt more.

he turns onto his back to give them a break, blinks up at the shadowed ceiling above him. he can barely see it, dark as it is. it’s quiet. he hates sleeping in the quiet, but there’s no fan or tv playing in the background here to drown it out. 

he looks up at the ceiling and he thinks about his sister, his mom, and how quickly she left him behind, like years watching him grow up didn’t mean a goddamn thing, thinks about his dad and the bottle he threw at him, the stitches on his forearm under his jacket under the sleeping bag. he thinks about the way his dad had looked at him when he said he was leaving, the way he hovered as he packed, shoved everything he needed into his backpack, asking him to stay, please, i’m sorry, please, where are you gonna go?

here, he thinks he said, i’m gonna go here. here he is. 

it’s so quiet. in the end, his dad had let him go without laying a hand on him, still shaken up about the bottle thing, probably, the way jughead flinched back. jughead had never liked touch much anyways, had a high pain tolerance but didn’t like the wrong kind of fabric on his skin, which was kind of a setback when you were poor as shit, but he digresses.

the old lady who technically runs the place didn’t exactly _say_ he could stay here, but he knows she never comes into the projection room anymore—all the dust is bad for her health, she told him, smiling the first day she hired him, _it’s so nice to have a young man like you to help out_. he would offer rent if she asked for any, but she won’t, and that’s fine by him.

the point is that there’s no one else here. the serpents who hang around sometimes are gone. he’s the only one breathing for at least a mile; he feels so incredibly alone.

his mother is gone and his father is probably passed out drunk at home. archie hasn’t answered this morning’s text, or the one from last night. he’s so young and he’s so lonely and so incredibly alone.

sighing, expelling the air from his lungs like dust on an old accordion, he curls onto his side, face buried in his pillow, and tries his very goddamn best not to cry.

it doesn’t work.

 

ii.

the thing about the projection room is that it’s very hot during the summer, stuffy like the inside of an oven because it doesn’t have any windows, just the door and the box for rolling the movies. he sleeps with the door cracked open and the pocket knife his dad got him for christmas last year under his pillow next to his phone. the serpents that hang around have never bothered him before, but he’s not stupid. he just doesn’t want to be roasted alive while he sleeps.

he spreads his change out on the little desk near the foot of his makeshift bed, counting each penny and dollar bill with a precision meant only for sacred objects. he’s grateful he doesn’t have to pay rent, because he doesn’t know how the hell he would be able to eat if he did.

mike’s grocery is cheaper than the bigger grocery store further into town where betty and the people on her block shop, where he isn’t sure if the blossoms shop because he can’t imagine penelope blossom pushing a shopping cart down an aisle, let alone her husband. he wonders if they order their groceries, or have some poor maid shop for them. he imagines them importing coffee from brazil, just to decide it isn’t good enough, and bites back a bitter smile.

eighty five cents a piece for little canned soups, two fifty for cans of peaches or pears—cheaper than their produce counterpart and longer lasting, too, which is good. ramen is a godsend, even if he has to sneak into the school to use their microwaves—no one’s there during the summer, so sometimes he just stays there all day. knockoff brand cereal would be great but he doesn’t have anywhere to store milk, which is surprisingly expensive these days. bread is, too, which is fine because bread molds, and he needs to make these things last, doesn’t wanna be living completely from paycheck to paycheck.

pop gives him discounts because jughead is his favorite customer, always refills his coffee five time in a row without asking why he’s still here instead of off with his friends somewhere—betty is off on an internship and archie is busy, he prepares anyways. yes, he’s been busy all summer, working for his dad, too busy to hang around here, even when he stops by to pick up an order and only shoots jughead the quickest of smiles. 

halfway through the summer someone tries to mug him, rips one of the four shirts he currently owns in the process, runs when jughead tells him who his dad is. it’s a card he hates to play, but it’s effective. you don’t want to fuck with a gang leader’s son, even if he isn’t actively talking to him right now and is probably drunk at some bar somewhere or off doing something illegal. it’s the concept that counts.

the point is, he puts half of his weekly paycheck to the side and takes the other half to the thrift store just outside of town, a quaint little place that doesn’t get much action but is still somehow standing. jughead has always believed in the magic of small roadside shops that have been there for as long as you can remember, so he doesn’t really question it. 

he buys a dark green shirt for four dollars and a thicker jacket for nine and fourth five cents. the jacket would’ve been more expensive, but there’s a sale going today. when the lady at the counter smiles at him, he wonders if there really is a sale, or if the way he does math on his fingers when he looks at the price tags is too much of a give away.

he doesn’t care either way, because he takes the leftover fifteen dollars and buys himself a new laptop charger back in town. he feels a rush of adrenaline pass through him when he does, the way it always makes him anxious spending too much at once, but he needs this, his old one is literally hanging on by a wire. batteries are expensive as shit, but he needs to be able to hear, too, so he buys enough to keep his hearing aids working for the foreseeable future. 

he takes his new possessions and lays them out carefully. his dad always used to say there’s nothing like the satisfaction of buying your own shit with your own money, but now he keeps wondering if it was worth it.

he’ll be fine, he thinks, shaking his head at his own pointless worry. he’s needed a new charger for a while, and living on three shirts is going a little too far in his current minimalist lifestyle.

he still has twenty three dollars he can stretch for the next few days, and it’s not like he’s planning on going out anywhere anyways. 

 

iii.

their road trip is canceled in four words sent over text, three hours and three and a half cups of coffee after their scheduled meet-up time, on the morning of the fourth of july. 

he would like to say he’s surprised, but things have been—different, with archie, lately. high school brought new tensions to the table, new rules to play by. bringing your weird best friend to a party instead of a pretty girl is something laughable, so archie stops doing it, brings betty instead, tells him about it after the fact with bashful apologies—i know you don’t like that kinda stuff, so i didn’t think you’d wanna go—like archie hasn’t asked him a million times in their life, even though he knew he’d say no.

their pieces don’t fit together the same way anymore, edges jagged and sharp where they used to be smooth. things have always been relatively easy with archie, but they’re not, anymore.

the thing is that jughead doesn’t try and fight it: the drifting, the change. he always knew it would happen eventually, seen and read enough to know that people like them aren’t meant to be friends. archie is the kind of person meant for the spotlight, to flourish and love and be loved, and jughead is not. jughead is the kind of person that waits for three hours at seven in the morning for a best friend who’s not gonna show up, because he doesn’t have anywhere else to be and he doesn’t wanna accept the fact that near radio silence is how years and years of something bigger and deeper than he’s ever known is gonna end.

and god, he’s always told archie everything—the way he doesn’t quite like girls but doesn’t quite like boys either, the way his mom used to pour over taxes and cry when she thought they couldn’t hear, the way he sees himself as something separate, the way he hopes archie won’t ever stop being his friend, his best friend in the whole goddamn world. they carved their initials into the wood of his treehouse. he’s so stupid. 

it’s—embarrassing, knowing how much archie _knows_ about him. knowing how easily he could tear him down if he wanted to, and how no one would think twice about it. 

also, he’d been saving up for weeks, since they were planning to stop at roadside attractions and eat at whatever small town diners they could find on the way, probably joke about how it was nothing compared to pop’s. he doesn’t know what to do with the money, now. doesn’t know what to do with all the words he was gonna say—my sister is gone, my father is a wreck. he’s been promising to get his shit together for the past four months but he hasn’t. he threw a bottle at me and then cried. i’m living in a fifty-year-old projection room and i don’t know how much longer i can do it. 

he tucks these things away, packs them up like the clothes folded under his bed. he’s so stupid. 

because he’s feeling like such a goddamn cliche on this fine independence day, he buys a gallon of strawberry ice cream and spends the night watching old reruns of law and order on his laptop, because there are no fourth of july movies and he’s saving the halloween ones for halloween. 

he next day, news of jason blossom’s death has spread to every corner of town. this summer has been a real fucking nightmare. 

a new feeling settles in his bones. he hangs his camera around his neck and heads to the lake. he has a story to write. 

 

vi.

he only panics a little bit when the drive in closes. not enough to like, tell people what the hell is up, but enough to go talk to the mayor about it. to mr. andrews. he feels bad for the things he says to him, because he thinks he might’ve meant them, and fred is nice, has always been welcoming and warm, even though he fired jughead’s dad.

he thinks for days in advance about where he’s gonna go after. what he’s gonna do. closing night comes around, and by the next morning he still isn’t sure. 

he’s not sure how he’s gonna like, _feed_ himself, now, but he’s not ready to move back in with his dad. the serpents hang around a lot more these days, and don’t exactly discourage fp’s alcoholic tendencies. he doesn’t know how to exist around his dad when he’s drunk, but it’s more than what he knows about how to exist when he’s sober. things have changed enough nothing feels quite right. he’s been the one helping dad stumble to bed at two in the morning and making his Special Hangover Coffee the next day. 

he packs everything up, a few cans of soup and his green shirt and his new jacket, his school supplies—it’s gonna be _so_ much fun carrying those around with him again, and he spent so much money on new notebooks and pencils and shit. very minimalistic, honestly, but it gets the job done. 

he spends the first night in a booth at pop’s, thanking every god in the sky that it’s open 24/7 and no one cares enough to ask why the hell he’s still here—he’s stayed all night before, anyways, back before his Homeless Adventures began. 

he spends the second night in the tube of the playground he used to play at in elementary school, does his homework spread out under the tree archie fell out of and broke his arm. he wakes up feeling like absolute shit, his back aching and his hearing aid digging into the side of his head where he forgot to take it off, but he got the physics homework done, so it’s fine. 

he spends the third night in his old treehouse, snuck into the backyard of the old couple that’s living in their old house now. he wonders why they haven’t taken the damn thing down, but decides they must not care about it. 

he’s glad it’s still in working order—smaller than he remembers, but big enough that he can lay out his sleeping bag and flick his flashlight on and finish a few chapters of the true crime book he’s been meaning to finish. he hopes to god it doesn’t rain, unseasonably cool and humid for this time of year, because lord knows he can’t afford medicine if he gets sick. 

he spends the fourth night the same way, but sneaks into the school early the next morning to use the shower. he spends the evening with his laptop in his favorite booth at pop’s. archie stops by, offers to buy him a milkshake and some fries. jughead accepts, because he’s kind of hungry, and he also knows this is archie’s way of slowly trying to make amends for this summer. he isn’t sure if it’s working, yet, but it’s a start. he asks why he’s wearing the same shirt he wore on monday, and jughead shrugs carefully and says that most people know what a washing machine is. 

the fifth night, it rains. he spends five minutes making sure his laptop is at the bottom of his backpack, wrapped up and protected with a jacket, and another five minutes walking, trying not to panic, trying to think, use his damn brain for a second, you can’t sleep out here.

he decides on the school, since it’s the closest building that he knows is abandoned right now, and he knows an easy way in. he thinks there’s some janitor’s closet under the stairs that not even the janitors use anymore. he thinks he used to hide in it when he didn’t wanna go to class but didn’t wanna go home either. 

it’s small, he finds, shutting the door tight behind him, but it’s nice. he has room to move, spread himself out a little bit. it’s little enough to be quaint, the way the projection room was. 

it’s better than the treehouse. gives him quick and easy access to a shower and water and all that. he wonders if they keep non-frozen food in the cafeteria overnight.

he flicks his flashlight on. stretches his legs and looks up at the ceiling.

he can make a home out of this, he thinks. a temporary one. figure out what to do later, when he’s not so tired and cold and alone. he’ll be fine. he’s down to his last can of soup, but school lunch is usually enough to keep him satisfied, especially if he takes what the others don’t want—all subtle: hey, are you gonna eat that? and he’s always been that kinda person, the kind to take leftovers, things people don’t want, so that’s fine. they turn the heating off at 8 pm so it’s cold as shit during the night, but jackets were invented for a reason, so that’s fine, too.

he’s tough, anyways. can punch back if he needs to, some of the only good advice his father’s ever dished out— _you gotta look out for yourself_ , he’d said, hands on his shoulders, grip tight, _no one else is gonna do it for you._

he can do that, he’s been doing it for years. he curls onto his side, face buried in his pillow, and doesn’t cry this time. there’s no time for it; he only has a few more hours before he has to be up, and he has a calculus test second period tomorrow. 

he sighs deep, expelling the air from his lungs like dust on an old accordion, and closes his eyes. he’ll be fine.

 

**Author's Note:**

> comment to help me pass my physics test on friday


End file.
